Automatically activate a new tab in Chrome

When you middle click on a link in Google Chrome, or right click on a link and then select "Open In New Tab", the link will be opened in background. If you want to view the newly created tab, you will have to activate it manually.

Use shift key to alter the default tab activation behavior

If you want to open a new tab in foreground in Chrome, you can Shiflt+Middle-Click or Shilft+Ctrl+Click on the link. That will get Chrome to open the selected link in foreground. If you don't mind holding an extra shift key, this solution is good enough for you.

Use Extension to alter the default tab activation behavior

Some users might not be happy with this solution and find an extra key inconvenient and unacceptable. They would like to change the default behavior and open a new tab in foreground without holding an extra key. There are some Chrome extensions which might help you solve this problem. For example, you can use this "Tab Activate" extension.

Best Solution: Use Slimjet Web Browser to alter the default tab activation behavior

The tab activation control is probably only one of the options that you would like to have in Chrome. If that is the case, you can use our Slimjet Web Browser which is based on the same Chromium open-source project but offers many more options and settings to make it more flexible and customizable.

To automatically open a new tab in foreground in Slimjet, go to the settings page and turn on the option "Open new tab from an existing tab in foreground by default". After that, when you middle click on a link, the new tab will be automatically activated. If you want to open the new tab in background instead, you can use Shift+middle-click or Ctrl+Shift+Click to do that.